


time's forever frozen still

by cinderlily



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-22
Updated: 2016-07-22
Packaged: 2018-07-26 03:16:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7558060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cinderlily/pseuds/cinderlily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It had started mostly as a joke fueled on energy and an overfilling feeling of pure love. <i>Come on, it was Juniors.</i></p>
<p>They had <i>won</i>. </p>
<p>AKA, Duke and Domi get married on January 6th, 2015th.</p>
            </blockquote>





	time's forever frozen still

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shmorgas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shmorgas/gifts).



It had started mostly as a joke fueled on energy and an overfilling feeling of pure love. _Come on, it was Juniors._

They had _won_. 

Max had been full of adrenaline and excitement and Duke had been… everything. He’d been his linemate but not _just_ his liney. They had more or less taken over the ice. It felt so freaking amazing, like everything they did turned to gold. 

Literally, GOLD. Which was amazing. Gold for Canada _in Canada_. 

He grabbed Duke first, swung him into a tight hug and whispered in his ear, “Marry me”. 

Duke looked at him like he was straight up crazy and then he broke into a smile, followed by a laugh. He butted their helmets together and said, “But of course, Max. Why not?” 

And then they’d gotten taken away from each other. There were hugs and lifting cups and people. There was the consolation handshakes and then the locker room. He was pretty sure he would never get the cider out of his hair, but it was totally worth it. 

The room was full of the type of energy that seemed to build upon itself and it was reaching it’s peak when someone (McDavid?) yelled out, “WE’RE GOING OUT!” 

That was a freaking brilliant idea. 

* 

That was not a freaking brilliant idea. 

He woke up the next morning feeling like someone had hit him in the head with a hammer. He was smart enough to keep water beside his bed, and it was his bed thankfully. His kit was set up beside him. (Thank you, Drunk!Max.) He took his blood sugar, astounded that it wasn’t completely off the whack. 

He turned to look at Duke in the next bed, except he wasn’t in the next bed. He was in _his_ bed. Which was weird. He didn’t feel any of the normal signs of stickiness, though, so he was pretty sure it was probably just a drunken pass out. Which was… good. He was pretty sure that was the best thing for them both. 

Duke moaned and opened one eye. “Por quoi?” 

“Hey, you are in my bed dude. I’m not in yours,” he pointed out. Duke sat up and rubbed at his eyes with both palms, blinking at the room. “I need food.” 

“Yeah,” Duke agreed. “Greasy food. Please.” 

Max gagged at the idea but ignored it in favor of focusing on the fact that there was team breakfast downstairs. And that team was holding the Gold. He smiled and smacked at Duke’s arm. “Come on champ, clothes and then downstairs.” 

He was halfway through his clothing when, for some reason a piece of paper caught his eyes. He didn’t know why but even just seeing the edge of it made a large red flag pop up in his brain. He grabbed it and opened it up. His brain went a little numb for a second. 

“Duke,” he said, slowly. But didn’t get a response. He tried again. “Duke… Hey, Anthony!” 

Duke leaned out of the open bathroom with a toothbrush hanging out of his mouth. “Wha?” 

“Have you ever been to Niagara Falls?” 

Duke took the toothbrush out of his mouth. “When I was twelve?” 

“Where is your passport?” he said, and he as so freaking calm and regulated. 

“With all the passports. I think Coach has them.” 

But it was not true, because he saw his passport seated on top of the table, just under where he’d grabbed the paperwork and beneath it was a second one. He ran his head through his hair. They couldn’t have. They didn’t. They _wouldn’t_. 

“What is this all about?” 

Duke had given up on brushing his teeth and was putting on a Team Canada shirt over his head. Max figured it best to pull off that band aid but refused to use his words. He slowly handed the paper over to Duke and frowned when Duke looked at it and started to laugh. 

“Come on, you think this is real?” Duke chuckled. “Connor or Nic are having us on.” 

Max thought about it for a moment and relief washed over him. Of course they were fucking with them. Of course. It was bound to be something like that. Those fuckers. Thought they’d get them good and drunk. It was the only logical conclusion. He sagged a little and smiled.  
.  
“We’re going to get them back, you know that right?” he told Duke who just smiled and shook his head. 

“Yeah, yeah.” 

Max finished getting dressed and they stumbled down the stairs. Max kept the paper in his back pocket, prepared at some point to through it on the table in front of the team and tell them all that they were total jack asses and to check their shampoo for Nair for a year. His hangover was just this side of bearable and he was pretty sure once he drank some water and carbed up he’d be in the clear. 

The group at the tables downstairs were a mixture of happy, excited, and extremely subdued. He grabbed his food, feeling just this side of low on blood sugar. The lovely lady that had been more or less feeding him the last week had a plate started as soon as he walked in and handed to him quickly. He loved her best. 

He sat down and took a heaping load of eggs into his mouth. Most people were barely paying attention to their surroundings so he grabbed his phone and started flicking through his messages. He had about two hundred text messages, most he just opened and sent a thumbs up or a smiley face as they were all variations on “ _Congrats!_ ” but then he noticed a stream of his teammates names with “ _Where the hell are you?_ ”

“You guys are alive!” McDavid called out, way too freaking loudly. “Where the hell did you go last night?” 

He ignored him, fascinated by his phone. He opened his email and the fourth email down caught his attention. 

“Haha, McJesus,” he heard Duke call back. He nudged him under the table. 

Duke looked at him and he raised his eyebrows up wide, handing his phone over to show the email. 

From his bank for an overdraft in his account. From a tax service that cost well over 500 hundred bucks. His stomach tied into one giant knot. Duke gave him wide eyes. 

“I told you to stop calling me that,” he frowned. “But really. You guys barely made it an hour. How lame can you get?” 

Max swallowed around the food that felt stuck in his throat. “Pretty freaking lame.” 

“Old married couple.” 

Duke practically choked on air. 

* 

“WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO?” Duke practically yelled, Max winced. Duke was pacing their room in large circles. 

“Fucker, keep your voice down, could you?” Max put his forefingers on his temples.

They were pretty much up shits creek without a paddle. Or a boat, for that matter. They were _in shit’s creek_. Max flopped back onto his bed and looked up at the ceiling. His dad was going to kill him. His _mom_ was going to kill him. Who gets married in freaking America? 

He exhaled and tried to collect his thoughts. They were going to have to get divorced, or maybe they could swing an annulment. Fuck, this was going to require _lawyers_ and it would get everywhere and he was supposed to go to camp with the Coyotes this year and this was going to ruin everything. 

Except. 

“Stay married.” 

Duke spluttered. “What?” 

Max pushed himself up. “No one _knows_ we got married. But if we get divorced there will be more paperwork. There will be lawyers. There will be… evidence. So we just. Stay married. For a while, you know? And then when we both have our fat contracts? We do a quickie divorce. No one knows the better. We won’t need to make it that big of a deal. What’s mine is mine, yours is yours. No kids, no mess.” 

“You… are fucking crazy. What if one of us wants to get REALLY married?” 

Max quirked an eyebrow. “Dude, we’re 19, do YOU want to get married anytime soon?” 

Duke pointed at the paper still on the table. “APPARENTLY.” 

“Calm down, fucker, give it a while, it’ll blow over.” 

* 

They forgot about it. Which, okay. Was not something you _should_ forget about but they did. It was something he ACTIVELY tried to forget at first, and then apparently that just stuck. He spent the better part of his time training and then Duke got traded to _his team_ and it was pure beauty. They were the best line mates ever. Sure the team needed a lot of work but whatever. That was… whatever.

He pushed himself and Duke to the brink. It was amazing. They became a duo to be reckoned with. It was a thing of pure dreams, and … something more. It was kept small and subtle and not really defined. Cause defining things when you played in major league sports was a shitty idea. They could see that when they witnessed the breakup of Doom between Mikkel and Oliver in a random locker room. 

It wasn’t even like they could live together, Duke was allergic to Orion and Max needed Orion. So they slept together a few nights a week and then on the road. They lived in a happy little bubble of being young and in the NHL and loving live. 

Until suddenly Duke was in RFA and Max got a text that read simply, ‘ _Get the fuck to the arena. Now._

He’d not even thought about it before he got in the car and driven to New Gila River in twenty minutes flat, disregarding a lot of laws and thanking everything holy they’d moved to the East valley or else it would have been twice the length. He pulled into the parking space the nearest to the entrance and found that there was someone _waiting outside for him_. 

He was brought into Chayka’s office, where Duke sat looking like he was on a chair made of needles, his agent rigid at his side. Chayka had three people on his side of the desk. 

“Gentlemen,” Max said with a tip of his non existent cap, going for charming. Chayka looked… well. He couldn’t tell. But he indicated an empty chair next to Duke and Max took it. 

“It seems that there is a fault in Mr. Duclair’s paperwork. Would you like to fill in the details for me?” 

He blinked emptily at his GM for a long minute. “Um. Why would I be able to fill out Duke’s paperwork?” 

Chayka pulled a piece of paper off the top of his list and flipped it towards Max, who leaned in to look at it. There was a place for ‘Spouse’ and his name had been typed in. His eyes went wide and his stomach dropped down to the floor. 

“Oh. Oh _fuck_.” 

He looked over at Duke, who had his face covered with one hand. 

“Funny story…” Max started but Chayka put a hand up. 

“Don’t care. We can’t have falsified documents in our paperwork, I need you to fill this out as soon as possible and I will pull yours out so we can dot those ‘i’s and cross the ’t’s.” 

Max felt like he’d just taken an adrenaline shot. “But you see… this isn’t what you …” 

Chayka shook his head. “Again, Mr. Domi, I don’t care for the details. Just let us settle this.” 

He looked again to Duke, who was still not looking at him and he took a proffered pen, filling in the bare minimum details on the sheet. He felt a little like he was in a dream. A fucked up crazy dream that would end in a minute or two when Orion jumped on him to get his meds. 

Except it didn’t. 

When offered it, he shook Chayka’s hand and then each of the three men (lawyer’s?) behind him. It was honestly a little funny, but he couldn’t make himself laugh. 

When everyone stood up, he, Duke and Duke’s agent were ushered out of the room. Duke’s agent gave him a look that spoke of a long conversation they were going to inevitably be having and Max shuddered for him. Then the thought occurred that he would be having the SAME conversation and he pretty much lost all sympathy. 

“This sucks,” he said, once it was just he and Duke in the hallway. 

Duke finally looked him in the eye and he felt the distinct feeling of a punch to the nads. His stomach dropped, he felt a little nauseous and if he kind of wanted to cry. He was about to ask something along the lines of ‘what the fuck?’ When Duke’s hand wrapped around his arm and he was taken pretty much against his will down the hallway and into a large empty conference room. 

For a minute Duke just spoke in Quebecois, rapid fire and really angry sounding. He would pause every once in a while to point at Max who got the feeling the whole rampage was telling him that it was _his fault_ and that was not fair. They married _each other_ , if he remembered correctly. Which… he couldn’t quite remember but that part seemed pretty distinct. 

After what felt like an eternity, Duke calmed down enough to resume English. “You said we would divorce.” 

“I thought we would. I mean. We will? Come on, I was hungover and it was the day after winning Gold. I wasn’t in a great frame of mind. You could have done it just as easily as I could.” 

Duke deflated a little. “You are right. I just. It’s on paperwork, Max. It’s on paperwork in the front office.” 

“But you’re getting a contract?” Max asked nervously. “They signed you.” 

He got a smile and a small duck of the head. “Yeah. Four years, four million.” 

Max practically crowed. “HELL YEA! That’s awesome! We’re in this together, man!” 

He realized what he said about three seconds after he said it. 

“I mean. We could be. If you wanted to be? We could be in this together.” 

Duke looked at his feet and then up towards Max’s hands and finally settled on his face. “Yeah. We could be. I guess we already are?” 

Max felt a weird jolt at that fact. God. They’d been married since JUNIORS. For three years. They’d been _married_ for three years. He blinked at Duke for a second. “We missed anniversaries.” 

Duke busted out in laughter. “THAT’S what you are concerned about? My mamma is going to have my head. I don’t know how we are going to live together with Orion. Oliver will give us disappointed Captain face… and you are concerned about our anniversaries? You know we get more of those.” 

_More of those_. 

He liked the sound of that. 

Not about the mom part though. His mom was going to have his head on a freaking platter. Oh god. She and Duke’s mom were going to plan a wedding. They would do it, they would totally do it. And Orion. That was going to be a problem. He closed his eyes and breathed in, an idea hitting him and giving him a moment of peace.

“Um. Can we pretend all that doesn’t exist for about three days?” 

Duke glared at him. “Why?” 

“Dude. Honeymoon sex. All the honeymoon sex.” 

He could see the moment that Duke decided to give in for once. 

“Honeymoon sex?” Duke asked. 

Max nodded. 

Duke leaned in and kissed him. Not quite as hungry as their kisses usually started, instead soft and sweet and like they had all the time in the world. 

Because they did. 

(And the dirty kisses came later.) 

* 

They waited to tell their parents till after their next anniversary, and when they did they told them they were engaged. No one was really that surprised, though his dad DID point out he was pretty young. As for Orion, they tried as many medicines as needed till it worked and Max got a daily cleaning lady. 

All around, they won again. And again. And just kept winning. 

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Ed Sheeran. 
> 
> I really hope you liked it. <3 <3


End file.
